Unusually Arsenal managed to make the most of the defeats of  two of the supposed top-four, Manchester United and Liverpool, as they beat Hull City 3-0 in an ill-tempered encounter.

After Liverpool had lost at rock-bottom Portsmouth and United had been thrashed by Fulham earlier in the day, the Gunners moved to within two points of Sir Alex Ferguson's side and still have a game in hand on last term's champions.

There still appeared to be some bad blood between Arsene Wenger's side and the Tigers following their controversial FA Cup clash in March which ended with City alleging that Cesc Fabregas had spat in the direction of their assistant manager, Brian Horton.
Cesc has always denied this allegation and Brown never put in an official complaint when Arsene said he had video evidence of exactly what had happened and said that the Tango man would not want to put anything in writing because he would not want it investigated and the real truth to come out.
Brown was waiting for Wenger to come out of the tunnel at the start of the match to shake his hand which Arsene graciously accepted; but I really hope Wenger tried to crush the hypocrites hand.

It was a pretty frustrating first half as Hull shut us down everywhere but were going to fall over like most teams do who try this tactic as they run out of energy usually at the end of the first half and then again halfway through the second half.

The fans were freezing their butts off watching a physical but methodical first half when Samir decided to change it all after getting a lot of physical treatment from Hull during the game, he decided to stamp his authority the trouble was he stamped his authority on Richard Garcia's foot behind the referees back, sparking a fracas with all the players including Almunia who raced ¾ the length of the pitch to get involved.

Almost immediately, and with the three minutes of first-half stoppage time almost up, Denilson curled in a fantastic 30-yard free-kick to give Wenger's side the perfect tonic.
Hull had not forgotten Nasri's action and scuffles continued as the half-time whistle went, with Richard Garcia confronting Nasri and stewards being forced to come in to help keep the two sides apart.

Hull had the perfect chance to equalise eight minutes into the second half when they won a penalty which in all honesty was a diabolical decision by the referee and as the replays showed as he gestured for all to see he exaggerated the motions of Silvestre pulling the of Craig Fagan however the replays showed he had got it totally wrong and it was in fact Fagan holding Silvestre and then took a dive. It was such a ludicrous decision by the referee that even Brown, Hulls manager even said it was a soft penalty.

Justice was seemed to prevail when Manuel Almunia saved Geovanni's weak penalty and from that moment on there was only going to be one winner.
Arsenal soon doubled their advantage when Abou Diaby surged forward before setting up Eduardo to net a simple second, however it was not a perfect strike and it was somewhat fortuitous that he was in a place where it really was impossible to miss and the ball did hit the net to put us two up and game over.

This seemed to lift a weight off the little strikers shoulders and what luck had previously been going against him now seemed to have turned and his confidence was coming back and all the little tricks and flicks were now being tried again, watch this space for the return of Eddy’s goals.

Abou Diaby lashed in a 79th-minute third goal after exchanging passes with Andrey Arshavin to put a gloss on the final scoreline which didn’t flatter the Gunners.
Hull almost snatched a consolation goal when Stephen Hunt was denied by Almunia while, at the other end, Arsenal substitute Theo Walcott sent a lob inches wide and Aaron Ramsay also went close to making it 4-0.

Next up we have Villa, now that is going to be a good test.